The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 65

CHAPTER 43 FATED MATES AND FROZEN KINGS

EMBER’S POV

Nathaniel’s jaw tightens. “If the council rules in Gale’s favor, fie has legal grounds to demand your return. Physically. The council can compel it-they have enforcement mechanisms that even Knox would have trouble circumventing, especially if it’s a formal ruling. You’d be back in Shadowmoon Pack territory as Gale’s legal mate, and there might be no room for divorce.”

My hands start to shake.

Back to Gale. Back to that house that smells like expensive furniture and despair.

Back to watching him leave in the middle of the night to meet Logan, back to feeling myself shrink, smaller with each passing day until there’s nothing left of me but a shell that knows how to smire on command. “That’s not happening.” Knox’s voice is brutal ice. “Run through their evidence. All of it.”

Nathaniel does. He outlines the charges, the testimonies they’ve gathered, the “documentation of instability” that Gale’s team has somehow manufactured.

Witness statements from pack members who barely knew me. Text messages taken out of context. A psychological evaluation I never consented to.

It’s masterful, really. The way they’ve made a rescue look like a kidnapping. Made protection look like coercion.

Made me look like a hysterical omega who threw herself at a powerful alpha and is now being rewarded for bad behavior.

“We can counter most of this,” Nathaniel says. “Knox’s legal team is already working on documentation of Gale’s abuse patterns, witness statements from familiar faces and others who observed concerning behavior. But it’s going to be a fight. And honestly? I’m not certain we win.”

The silence stretches, suffocating the air in the room.

And that’s when the idea hits me.

It arrives fully formed, terrifying in its clarity.

We could argue about impropriety. We could defend against the charges. We could probably build a case

strong enough to create reasonable doubt.

But reasonable doubt isn’t enough.

What I need is something unimpeachable. Something sacred. Something that pack law protects

absolutely, without exception.

“We should claim we’re fated mates.”

The words leave my mouth before I can think better of them.

Nathanit stops mid-swipe on his fablet. Hie eves cut to me with something that looks like alarm.

“Knox doesn’t move or react visibly to my words. But I watch his shoulders turn to stone, watch every muscle in his body lock into place like he’s been flash-frozen.

“If the council believes we’re true mates,” I press forward, “they’ll forgive everything. The timeline, the impropriety, all of it. Fated mate bonds supersede every other law in pack statute. They’ll never rule to separate us. They can’t.”

“No.”

Knox’s voice is flat. A door slamming shut so hard the hinges rattle.

“Why not? It’s the only defense they can’t argue with-”

“I said no.”

He still hasn’t turned around. He’s standing at the window, staring out at the mountains, and I can see his reflection in the glass.

His jaw is clenched so tight it looks painful. His hands are fisted at his sides.

“Knox, please.” I stand, moving toward him. “Just listen to me. If we claim the bond-”

を

“I know what claiming the bond means.” He turns then, and his eyes are that dangerous frozen blue, the one that means he’s locked everything away behind walls so thick I’ll never breach them. “I know what it costs. I know what it requires. And I’m telling you no.”

“Why?”

The question hangs between us.

I can see Nathaniel in my peripheral vision, very deliberately not looking at either of us, giving us what privacy he can in a room that suddenly feels too small.

“Because I won’t lie about that.” Knox’s voice is raw in a way I’ve never heard before. “I won’t stand in front of a council and claim something that significant. I won’t use that bond as a weapon when it already-”

He stops. Swallows. Looks away.

And I understand.

Celeste was his fated mate. His true mate. The bond he already found and lost and destroyed with his

own hands.

And it might have equally destroyed him.

And now I’m asking him to weaponize that wound for us. To lie with something sacred for him. To stand in front of the council and declare destiny with a woman who’s just… a contracted girlfriend.

No wonder there is a pained undertone to the harshness of his eyes.

This isn’t just about Celeste. It’s about what claiming me would mean, pretending the mate bond is real

when wet buth know I’m a transaction

When we both know this ends the moment the Summit is over and he no longer needs a fake girlfriend on

his arm

I’m asking him to say the words without meaning them.

And for a man who already lost the real thing, that might be the cruelest ask of all.

Yet I drag in a deep breath, a desperate one.

“Knox.” My voice comes out softer than I intended. “I know what I’m asking. I know what it costs you. And I know that standing up there and saying those words

“You know nothing.” A mirthless chuckle follows. “You know absolutely nothing”

“Then tell me

through his hair, the gesture

ake you understand what

ated and helpless. “I can’t explain it in a way that o claim a fated bond when my last fated bond

s covered in-”

1. His chest heaves once. T

is so quiet I can hear my own

art strategy,” Knox finally say s throne, locking the wounded

out fated bonds. They want to

because it reaffirms their entire

“Knox-”

“We’ll do it.” He turns

happening. Watch

where it can’t h

documentatio

Nathaniel

“The

different now. Flat. Clinical. The Lycan King returning

d layers of armor and ice. “The council is romantic

If we claim the bond, they’ll want to rule in our favor

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